McCallie graduated a bunch of outstanding players from last year’s basketball team and coach John Shulman resigned shortly after the season ended.
So first-year Blue Tornado coach David Conrady was curious to see just how far his team had come thus far and he got his answer Tuesday night in a Hall of Fame game with the Ooltewah Owls at the McCallie Sports & Activities Center.
No question the veteran coach saw plenty of things to improve on, but he was happier than the average bear following McCallie’s 70-47 victory.
“I’m really pleased with how hard we played and I thought we were locked in defensively,” Conrady said following a post-game talk with his team.
“I liked how we played with pressure without fouling, so defensively, I thought we were pretty good. We’re still changing a few things on offense and it might be ugly for a while. We made it hard on them with our defense and that allowed us to get out and run a little to get some easy transition baskets,” he added.
Sophomore Eric Rivers was the leader for the Blue Tornado as he finished with 27 points. Conrady was all smiles when he was asked about his young star.
“Eric has had a great summer and pre-season and he’s worked as hard as anyone. He’s really improved a lot, but we’ll be leaning on him a lot this year,” the coach explained.
Ooltewah coach Jay Williams knows that his team has a long way to go, but this was the first game of a long season and he’s confident that time and experience will take care of a lot of things.
“We knew coming in that we have to continue getting better, but we’re still in the middle of tryouts. McCallie has a great program and an outstanding team. We schedule teams like this for a reason,” Williams nodded.
“I thought we did some good things early, but this is one of those games we can learn from. I liked our effort as everyone played hard until the end, but we just have to keep getting better,” he added.
Grayson Wood scored on a baseline jumper to give Ooltewah the early lead at 2-0.
A bucket from Jax Howard made it 4-2 before a jumper from the wing by Matt Serven gave the Owls a 6-5 lead with 4:33 left in the opening stanza.
McCallie then went on a 13-0 run over the next four minutes for an 18-6 lead following a layup by Rivers and the difference was 20-10 when the first quarter ended.
Another 7-0 run early in the second gave McCallie its biggest lead of the half at 27-12 following a layup by Neill Dickey before two free throws at the end by Howard trimmed the Blue Tornado lead to 29-17 at the halftime break.
McCallie finished the third stanza on a 13-4 run for a 51-27 advantage with eight minutes remaining and it never got any closer.
The biggest lead of the game came at 68-38 when Melvin Tobar canned a 3 with 2:31 to play.
While Rivers captured scoring honors for both teams with his 27 points, teammates Anthony Watkins and Brady Ragland were also in double figures with 13 and 10 points, respectively.
Wood topped the Owls scoring list with 16 points while Serven and Howard followed with 12 and 10 points, respectively.
McCallie also won the rebound battle by an unofficial 34-21 count.
Tanner Shulman had 10 to lead McCallie while Tony Jackson and Watkins claimed seven apiece. Wood had seven boards for the Owls while Serven snagged five.
OOLTEWAH 10 7 10 20 -- 47
McCALLIE 20 9 22 19 -- 70
OOLTEWAH (47) – Wood 16, K. Smith, Howard 10, Henry, Haynes, Houston, Williams, Walker 7, L.J. Serven 2, M. Serven 12, T. Smith.
McCALLIE (70) – Dickey 6, Rivers 27, Ragland 10, Tobar 5, Watkins 13, Shulman 5, Albritton, Hamilton 4, Jackson, Belisle, Turner, Elliott.
3-POINT GOALS: Ooltewah 1 (Wood); McCallie 8 (Rivers 2, Ragland 2, Watkins 2, Tobar, Shulman).
(email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)